Bird Canada wants Windsor residents to know that an upcoming pause in e-scooter and e-bike rental operations in the city is temporary.
The city announced last week that a five-year agreement with Bird was set to expire Tuesday April 21, and rentals would no longer be available following that date.
The city said discussions with Bird were underway to potentially bring the rentals back.
The company deployed 450 e-scooters and 100 e-bikes to the region to begin the season last month.
Pat Graham, general manager of Bird Canada, said the pause was unexpected and due to timing, not operational concerns.
He added the existing contract allowed for a one-year extension that Bird expected would be in place before it expired.
"We're still very hopeful that will take place shortly," Graham said.
"We're just at the final stages of a few different things with the city throughout the hopefully temporary pause, and our expectation is to continue to serve the City of Windsor once the final details of the contract are hammered out."
Graham said over the past five years, the service has been heavily used in Windsor with close to 500,000 rides.
"Since we've announced the temporary pause we've had over 100 residents reach out and explain that this is an essential service to them and that is going to impacted their day to day lives, particularly like getting to work, and affordability of transportation options," he said.
"It's quite clear sometimes unfortunately you have to take something away to show how valuable it can be."
He said while the service is paused, Bird has temporarily laid off a little over half of the 20 staff in Windsor.
"We're working as hard as we can to get them back on the streets, and I know the city is as well," said Graham.
"We don't want this to be a long pause and we've heard loud and clear from a lot of residents who need this service to go about their daily lives and we want to continue to deliver that."
Graham stressed the company is not leaving Windsor, pushing back against speculation on social media.
He said a proposal has been sent to the city for consideration and meetings were planned in the coming weeks.
Scooters and bikes will be collected and stored at Bird’s local service centre until an agreement is finalized.